AIC's 44th Annual Meeting

Although warned of the arrival of Hurricane Sandy on October 26, 2012, it was nonetheless a rude awakening for all New Yorkers who were unprepared for the magnitude of the disaster. On November 4th the Museum of Modern Art hosted a free presentation (1) by speakers from the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team along with conservators from MoMA. Focusing on “recovering wet art and cultural materials”, the meeting brought together artists, collectors, and Conservators reaching out to one another for information and assistance in the aftermath of the storm. A united volunteer investment in recovery at the Westbeth Artist’s Residence is one story among many across New York City. The basement storage that housed innumerable works by artists living in this residence as well as the Martha Graham Dance Company historic collection had been flooded by over 12 feet of water from the Hudson River along with overflowing sewage. AIC-CERT volunteers, resident artists and area Conservators provided services to support the rescue efforts. The proposed presentation for the 2016 AIC/ CAC-ACCR joint meeting in Montreal, Canada intends to describe firsthand the salvage activities undertaken. The presentation further intends to describe the construction of a stretching device (2) based on a design by Prof. Winfried Heiber. The stretching device aims to restore planarity to paintings suffering severe shrinkage and undulations from direct water exposure. Two Hurricane Sandy related case studies along with one case study of water damage due to roof leakage would be used to elucidate the efficacy as well as limitations of the stretching device. 1. A free public presentation on recovering wet art and cultural materials will be held Sunday, November 4 from noon until 2 p.m. at The Museum of Modern Art. Speakers from the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC-CERT), along with conservators from MoMA, will provide suggestions and answer questions on how to safely handle and dry wet materials such as paintings, drawings, books, sculpture, and other artistic and cultural works. The consortium will take place in MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Theater, in the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, 4 West 54 Street, New York. 2. “A Tensioning Device for the Reduction of Severe Planar Distortions in Paintings”, by Carolyn Tomkiewicz, published in the WAAC Newsletter Volume 35, Number 2 of May 2013